The Double Leash
Blizzard to lilac. Dandelion
to leaf. Endless
variation of seasons I note
in passing, smells
I cannot smell: rotting
gardens, feces, musk of cat.
These two
run in front of me, golden
shoulder to patchwork, heads
lifted or lowered into
scent, tongues lolling. Ears
damp with their own
spittle and each other's
tell me, tethered a pace behind,
their journey's epic: tipping
forward to the familiar or
stranger's distant yap; angling
to my breathing, whispered
praise, my slightest
suggestion.
Ignored.
The shepherd
throws herself into
any whirring wheel, to herd
the neighbor's tractor mower or
the UPS truck's packets
home; pulling her back,
the golden's oblivious
ballast, instinct heading
always for the gutter's
deepest puddle, her own way
within the forked leash's
one-foot range. As we pass,
the clans set up
their barking, as if we
were news, gathering center
of a congenial warning
din—mine answer with
disturbances of pace, an extra pull
or lollop, grins thrown
slant-eyed over shoulders
until one hears a call
she can't ignore, surrenders
to baying's ferocious
joy moving through
muscle and bone. Moving
storm, storm's eye: happy
universes whirl in their skins
as I do in mine. Unknowable,
their fate. Mediums between
foreign principalities, they're tied
to me, to each other, by my will,
by love; to that other realm
by song, and tooth, and blood.
